Two chordograms of balads: Love of My Life and Time Waits for No One.

(newest plots can be found under General, Keys and Chords)
Explanation
These chordograms show the similarity for every bar of a song with certain chords. The more similar the bar is to that specific chord, the darker the color in the graph. When you see bright yellow, it is very unlikely that chords was played in that bar.

The two songs are, in my opinion, quite similar in style. Both ballads have intricate piano arrangements and are a little more stripped down compared to the rest of the discography. That is why I thought it would be interesting to see how the chordograms compared to one another.

Comparison
I still need to listen to the songs while having a closer look at the chordograms. But I can already see that there are somewhat more saturated colors in Freddie Mercury’s plot. This would mean that the chords are more distinguishable. However, there are four very bright lines in the Queen plot, which could explain why the rest of the figure is less saturated. Another explanation could be that the song by Freddie Mercury is less complicated than the Queen song, I will look at and listen to the songs and the chord progressions to draw a good conclusion.

Electronic disco song Let’s Turn it On by Freddie Mercury.

Explanation
I think it is interesting to see that in this very electronic song, there is not a clear pattern in the chords, whereas in the former two figures there was some sort of dark blue path throughout the plots. All chords that include the 7 have a darker blue line across the entire plot, which is explainable by the way pitches are constructed.

Chordogram of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Explanation
Since Bohemian Rhapsody is such a complex song, I wondered what it would look like in a chordogram. I will also still take a look at it in more detail.

Conclusion

The most popular songs are danceable, happy and have sung lyrics.

Popularity
The first thing that stands out is that Roger Taylor is far less popular than Queen and Freddie Mercury. The most popular song by Roger Taylor is Man On Fire and has a popularity of 38. The three most popular songs by Queen are Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites The Dust and Don’t Stop Me Now which all have a popularity of 79. Danceability and popularity seem to be correlated in Queen and Roger Taylor songs; the more danceable songs are also more popular. Within the songs of Freddie Mercury this pattern can not be found.

Instrumentalness
As for instrumentalness, Spotify was not too precise, since the song with the highest score was Seven Seas of Rhye which does have sung lyrics. The other songs at the top, though, are The Ring, Vultan’s Theme, God Save the Queen and Escape From The Swamp which are all completely instrumental. In the top 10 most instrumental songs, seven are from the album Flash Gordon which is an album made for the homonymous science fiction movie. It seems that the more instrumental a song is, the less popular it is on Spotify. There is one exception to this rule: Another One Bites the Dust is one of the most popular songs by Queen but has an instrumentalness of 0.312.

Valence
The happiest song according to Spotify is Misfire by Queen. Rain Must Fall is following with only 0.001 points in difference. Both songs have a danceability score above the mean of 0.462. This seems to be fitting the norm; the happier a song is, the higher it rates on danceability. The lowest valence scores are from the songs Ming’s Theme and The Ring (Hypnotic Seduction Of Dale) which also both are very instrumental. The next song with the lowest valence is a more typical song by the band, namely Who Wants To Live Forever. This song also has the lowest danceability score (0.099).

Durational features

Explanation
Here you can see the mean tempo, the deviation of each song from that mean tempo, the loudness in opacity and the beats per measure signature in the size of the point. The biggest deviation can be found in the oldest Queen songs, which can be seen in the labels if you hover over the points, or in the songs with either a relatively slow or fast tempo. Older Queen songs were recorded using analog equipment, which may have had limitations in terms of capturing precise tempos. This could have led to more variation in tempo in their older recordings. It might also be, that the earlier songs were even more experimental than later songs and incorporated more styles that suited more tempo changes.

Time signature
Spotify API had a hard time with the songs Execution of Flash as well as Ming’s Theme by Queen because there is no consistent time signature. Both songs are from the album Flash Gordon and as you will see in the chromagram section, this is not a typical album. The song Dear Friends by Queen also stands out; it states that there is only one beat per measure but when I listened to the song, I felt like the time signature was 4/4. I do have to say that the arrangement with the piano emphasized all beats very equally, that might be an explanation for the weird time signature.

Timbre features

Explanation
For every 12 levels of timbre used by Spotify API I have plotted the range for the songs by Freddie Mercury, the oldest songs by Queen (released around the year 1973) and the newest songs with Freddie Mercury still as lead singer (released around the year 1990). I am not sure I will keep this plot in, because I cannot see very interesting differences between the three categories.

After Freddie Mercury’s death, the sadness could be felt in the songs by Queen.

Emotion Model
I was curious about the emotion every song portrays. Freddie Mercury has once said that he is very emotional. “I think all my songs are under the label emotion. The more I open up, the more I get hurt, so basically what happens is I’m just riddled with scars.” After Freddie Mercury’s death, I could see songs portraying more of a sad emotion. Since emotion is very complex, I have decided to simplify this by plotting the valence (positive and negative) against the arousal (for which I have selected high and low energy). This way, the songs are plotted on the 2D valence-arousal model of Emotion in which each quadrant stands for a different type of basic emotion (angry, happy, sad, peaceful).

Explanation
There seem to be very few peaceful and calm pieces, which corresponds to the characteristics of the band. The only songs that are in this category are from the band with Freddie Mercury as lead singer. After the death of the singer, there seems to be a slight shift towards sad and angry songs. Roger Taylor has more turbulent songs, while Freddie Mercury also has quite a few sad songs.

Chromagram of a very atypical song by Queen (Ming’s Theme) shows simplicity.

Chromagram
I have created three chromagrams to show the difference between a simple, atypical Queen song and complex Queen and Freddie Mercury songs that are very representative for their style. A chromagram shows the the energy for every pitch class during a song.

Explanation
A very atypical song by Queen is Ming’s Theme (In The Court Of Ming The Merciless). This song is part of the album that was made specifically for the movie Flash Gordon. It starts with low pitched electronic sounds and later on includes people talking. In the chromagram you can see how the song starts on a note that is somewhere around F sharp. There are two descending melodies leading to a note between C and C sharp. After this, the talking starts with the same note softly sounding in the background. Around two minutes into the song there is another descending melody. The melodic part ends with a perfect fifth (D and A). The song concludes with a dialogue from the movie.

Comparison
On the next page the chromagram of Don’t Stop Me Now and I Was Born To Love You can be seen. You will see that this clear distinction of notes and sections can not be made in a more typical Queen song, also in a Freddie Mercury song this is much harder. Even the key can not be easily identified.

Typical Queen and Freddie Mercury songs, however, are far from simple.

Queen
For Queen, I think Don’t Stop Me Now is a very representative song. It is very energetic, melodic and euphoric. It is also one of the most popular songs according to Spotify, along with Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites The Dust.

Freddie Mercury
For Freddie Mercury as a solo artist I have chosen the song I Was Born To Love You, as it is the most popular song according to Spotify. I also think it is quite representative for Freddie Mercury, as it has a disco feeling and is very lively. The song The Great Pretender is equally popular, but is a song originally by The Platters and written by Buck Ram (their manager).
I have also plotted The Great Pretender as a chromagram (can be seen on the next tab) and interestingly this was much more readable than original Queen and Freddie Mercury songs, just like Ming’s Theme.

Comparison
The chromagram shows that Don’t Stop Me Now contains lots of pitch classes and it has thus very complex harmonies, while I Was Born To Love You seems to have a bit more of distinct pitch classes with high energy. The highest energy can be found in the class of G sharp, this is also the key of the song. For Don’t Stop Me Now it is harder to see the key, though the pitch class G seems to have a slightly bigger magnitude than the other pitch classes, this song is in the key of F major.

The chromagram of The Great Pretender originally from The Platters by Freddie Mercury.

Explanation
As said before, this song is originally by the Platters and covered by Freddie Mercury. In the chromagram you can clearly see that the song starts in G major from the frequent bright yellow stripes, meaning that there is most energy in the pitch class G, and modulates at around 2 minutes to G sharp major. The pitch classes C and D are also used repeatedly in the first 120 seconds. Freddie Mercury loved the song The Great Pretender for its meaning as he felt like he played different roles on stage; he went through different moods, wore different costumes and became someone else with each costume.

Conclusion
Both Queen and Freddie Mercury songs are known for the intricate harmonies, which the chromagrams seem to confirm. Though the solo work might be slightly less complex and sometimes a little more stripped down to focus on the rhythm and energy.

Queen songs tend to deviate from the clear structure that is frequent in popular music, unless Roger Taylor writes the song.

Self-similarity matrices
These are four self-similarity matrices, with the axes in seconds, that show the pitch- and timbre-based self-similarity for every bar. At the top you can see a song that is written and sung by the drummer Roger Taylor but released as a Queen song. On the bottom the song Bohemian Rhapsody, written by Freddie Mercury, can be seen. The song written by Roger Taylor seems to have much more of a uniform structure than Bohemian Rhapsody, which can be derived from the checkerboard pattern.

Explanation
The song I’m in Love With My Car starts with a guitar riff accompanied with repeating D chords on the piano, followed by verse 1 that makes use of four different chords that are repeated after one another. After 60 seconds, the chorus starts in which Freddie Mercury sings backing vocals. There is a slight change in color in the timbre-based matrix, but I expected to see a greater change. The chords stay the same, thus the transition from verse 1 to the chorus is not really visible in the chroma-based matrix. At around 1:20 minutes (80 seconds) into the song, the chords change. This can be clearly seen in the chroma-based matrix, but is less apparent in the timbre-based one. That the guitar riff and accompanying piano chords recur after this short change becomes evident from both matrices. Then there is another verse that follows the same structure as verse 1, but does include guitar riffs in the background. The two matrices pick up the repetition in the second chorus very well, resulting in diagonal lines at around 2:10 minutes (130 seconds). They play once again some guitar riffs accompanied by the repeating chords on the piano that slowly fade out with car noises sounding on top of that. The song ends with some chords on the guitar that sound very different (which explains the bright yellow line at the end of the timbre-based matrix) and car noises.

Songs by Freddie Mercury as a solo artist also have a clearer structure.

Comparison
As I explained in the introduction, Queen is known for their experimentation and deviation from the norm. On the previous tab this could be seen in the matrices of the song Bohemian Rhapsody, since there was some structure visible but not how you would expect a typical rock or pop song to be arranged. The song that was written by Roger Taylor had much more of a common and clear structure, as is the case with a very typical song by Freddie Mercury as a solo artist. On this page you can see the timbre- and pitch-based self-similarity matrices of the song Living on My Own. The song is in my view a classic Freddie Mercury song, that features Freddie’s distinctive voice, flamboyant personality, and his love for dance music. The song’s upbeat tempo, catchy melody, and electronic production are all hallmarks of Freddie’s solo work. Additionally, the song features a memorable chorus, which is typical of Freddie’s ability to write catchy songs.

Freddie Mercury
The chroma-based matrix illustrates nicely through the diagonal lines that there are lots of repetitions in the song. The songs starts with A minor chords and when the next chord is introduced, there is a yellow line in the chroma-based matrix (at around 25 seconds). At around 50 seconds, the chorus is introduced. In the same matrix it becomes clear that the chorus repeats after another 35 seconds (approximately 85 seconds into the song). Next there is a break with some scatting and improvisation on the piano, followed by halve of the chorus. The beat that is used throughout the whole song accompanied by piano chords and some occasional scatting are utilized as an outro. Though the true ending is the artificial repetition of one ad lib by Freddie Mercury.

And here is an extra, interesting self-similarity matrice of an atypical song by Queen written by Brian May.

Explanation
Coincidentally, this song is also not written by Freddie Mercury but by Brian May. I found this song very interesting, because of it deviates greatly from the normal style of Queen. It is a blend of folk and progressive rock with acoustic instruments, vocal harmonies, and storytelling lyrics. At around 35 seconds into the song the beat comes in. This interestingly leads to a change in the chroma matrix but a much less clear change in the timbre matrix. After one and a half minutes the bridge introduces new chords. I find it very strange that this is so clear in the timbre matrix but not in the chroma matrix. It almost feels as though the matrices are switched around. Specially because the bright yellow cross in the chroma matrix is exactly where the electric guitar makes an appearance.

After the death of Freddie Mercury the band released most songs in G major, just like Freddie Mercury in his solo career.

Explanation
Here you can see the distribution of keys for every artist. In the next tab you can see the actual amounts (which can also be seen in if you hover over the points), but as there is such a difference in playlist length (see the table), I have chosen to first plot the ratio.

Interestingly, the key G major was very loved by Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor and the band after the death of the lead singer. Nevertheless, before that, the band used the key D major the most frequent.

Numbers of Tracks per Artist

Distribution of keys for every song in actual amounts.

Numbers of Tracks per Artist